Using state-of-the-art models for fire, vegetation and post-fire erosion, we analyzed the potential impacts of a landscape-scale fuel treatments program in the upper Mokelumne watershed. In addition, we examined who would benefit the most from investing in fuel treatments and reducing the risk of high-intensity wildfires. Our findings can help inform forest management not only in the Mokelumne watershed, but also in similar watersheds throughout the Sierra Nevada and the western United States. High severity wildfires in California's Sierra Nevada pose a serious threat to people and nature. The 2013 Rim Fire in the Central Sierra Nevada burned nearly 257,000 acres, much of it at high severity, at a cost of more than $127 million, not including the costs to the economy and tourism. Although proactive forest management can reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire, the pace and scale of fuels treatments is insufficient, given the growing scope of the problem.

Purpose

Â Using the Upper Mokelumne River Watershed as a representative case, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Forest Service, and a diverse set of other stakeholders sought to answer the following question: Does it make economic sense to increase investment in proactive forest management to reduce the risk of large, damaging wildfires?